Content Management Systems (CMS) are a type of software that aids businesses in managing their website and blog content. If you are only publishing 1-10 webpages on your site (web or blog), it is unlikely that you will need a CMS. If, however, you have more than 10 pages and plan to grow, and/or have several people writing content whom do not have a great deal of technical Internet knowledge, then a CMS may be just what your business needs.

CMSes can cost anywhere from $0 (free OpenSource package) up to several hundred thousand dollars or more. In fact, I've worked with big clients whose web redesign projects were in the high seven figures, and whose CMS budget was in the low seven figures.

Fortunately, for small businesses publishing a website, you can spend next to nothing for a CMS. There are numerous well-written OpenSource packages that allow you to download and tweak the software to your needs. You can even redistribute the new version and charge for the service, all provided that your version is also OpenSource. Those are the terms, and they rarely differ.

If you do not have anyone to manage your website and do not have the budget to hire anyone, either part- or full-time, the good news is that some of the simpler free CMS systems can be maintained by a non-webmaster. You will still need to learn a few content management-related terms.

Tthe simplest content management systems are typically used to manage blogs. A blog, if you are not familiar with the term, is short for "weblog". Blogs started as digital diaries and have become a very informally-written type of website where entries are typically posted on a daily basis. The charm of a blog is that the writing feels very personal, one-on-one. A blog, if written properly, is a great way for a business person to communicate with the public, either to demonstrate your knowledge on a topic, provide solutions to problems, or even publish some informal details on your products and services.

CMS packages are also used to manage entire websites of 1000s of webpages. But whether you want to use a CMS to manage a website or a blog, the primary features of a CMS are (1) ability to write content without needing to learn HTML, the code that drives Internet webpages; and (2) a relatively easy way to change the visuals and layout of all of your web or blog pages all at once by simply changing a single page template.

Please check back on this page (at the very bottom of this article here) for updates. I'll post some links to additional details about Content Management in the near future. I will also soon be updating the Internet Marketing Basics blog - a guide for people new to doing business on the Internet - to provide further details about Content Management Systems.